A devastating, mile-wide tornado touched down near Oklahoma City on Monday, killing at least 51 people and decimating homes, businesses and a pair of elementary schools in the suburb of Moore.

According to the state's medical examiner, the death toll was expected to rise.

The schools—Plaza Towers Elementary and Briarwood Elementary—were leveled by the tornado. It was unclear how many children were in them at the time the twister hit, but according to KFOR, at least seven children died at Plaza Towers, and as many as two dozen more were feared to be trapped inside the rubble. An Associated Press photographer saw rescue workers pull several children out alive. A makeshift triage center was set up in the school's parking lot.

Staff: Admin

Staff: Mentor

Just horrible, so sudden, so erratic, here they'll be focusing on one tornado, when out of the blue another forms in seconds miles away and that's the one that kills. That they don't have mandatory shelters here where tornadoes are common is mind boggling. An underground tornado shelter could save so many lives.

. . . .
Amy Elliott, the spokeswoman for the Oklahoma City medical examiner, said at least 91 people had died, including the children, and officials said that toll was likely to climb. Hospitals reported at least 145 people injured, 70 of them children.

I saw photos of the Elementary schools and they were flattened. In a place like OK why don't schools have tornado strength shelters?

Depends on what you're protecting them from: a tornado in the area or from a direct strike.

Tornadoes cover a lot less area than hurricanes. Flying debris from a tornado in the area is a lot bigger hazard than actually being struck by a tornado.

The probability of being hit directly by a tornado is about once every 1400 years. Only about 1% of tornadoes reach EF4 or worse. So taking shelter in school hallways is pretty good protection against the most likely threat.

Tornado related deaths at schools. Interestingly, the Southeast is more likely to have school fatalities even though tornado alley (Oklahoma, Kansas) has the most tornadoes.

That they don't have mandatory shelters here where tornadoes are common is mind boggling. An underground tornado shelter could save so many lives.

But ironically,

Some of the children killed at Plaza Towers Elementary School in Moore, Oklahoma, during Monday's storm drowned in a basement area there, Oklahoma Lt. Gov. Todd Lamb told CNN Tuesday morning. "My understanding, this school ... Plaza Towers, they had a basement. Quite frankly, don't mean to be graphic, but that's why some of the children drowned, because they were in the basement area," he said.

So sad on so many levels. I couldn't watch the news last night, but this morning I caught some of Good Morning America. The devastation in Moore is so nasty and widespread that I would not be surprised to see the death toll double as rescuers search the rubble. If I lived nearby, I would take Duke to help search. He has a nose like a bloodhound.

Staff: Mentor

For part of my mass casualty incident (MCI) training in EMT school, we watched a video of the emergency respose right after a very similar tornado in the same area a number of years ago. Very intense trying to help so many badly injured folks all at once, while running low on supplies and medical personnel. Sad to see it happen again.

For a strong F4 the only safe shelter is a underground bunker. Early warning for evacuation away from the path is the top priority.

Thanks to advances in technology, average warning times are all the way up to 16 minutes. (Moore received an incredible 36 minutes of warning, but warning times that long are the exception.)

Only a small portion of a strong F4 storm actually has F4 winds. For example, yesterday's storm was estimated between a mile wide and two miles wide, but the F4 (or above) winds only covered about a quarter mile swath.

One needs to do a serious risk assessment between the probability of being hit by the strongest part of the storm vs the probability of being caught in your vehicle. Your vehicle will leave you vulnerable to even the weaker parts of the storm. You better be sure you can get well away from the storm's path - that you don't get caught because the storm changed direction, that downed power lines and trees aren't blocking your escape route, that you don't get caught in traffic.

The chances of getting caught in traffic are pretty low since most people will choose to shelter in place. If you're absolutely sure you're far in front of the storm, evacuating isn't a horrible idea (just keeping in mind that the average warning time is 16 minutes - YMMV).

Staff: Mentor

I can conjure up at least one scenario where they did the right thing... imagine the tornado is heading towards the road at a sharp angle (the angle between the road and the tornado's path is small, say 10 degrees). If you're on the road your best move is probably to drive towards the tornado and pass it before it actually intersects the road. I don't know if the tornado was taking that specific path in this case though